Titahi Bay on the fringe of Wellington ranks as one of New Zealand’s prettiest beaches. It is a near-perfect crescent of sand curved like a sliver of new moon that looks west out to sheltering Mana Island and then to the wilder Tasman beyond.
I grew up on Titahi Bay streets bordered mainly by state houses during New Zealand’s baby boomer years. Many who lived there had called other places their home first. For my family it was Ireland and the UK, for others the Pacific, and some came from heartland New Zealand looking for new opportunity in the “big smoke.”
Together we shared common values of family, school or work, politeness and church, all of them underpinned by the beauty of the bay at the end of the street. All that, however, was not enough to guarantee success in the wider world. Some did do well but, for whatever reason, luck and opportunity proved elusive for others I grew up with.
I was fortunate enough to dodge some of life’s nastier bullets. I was the first in my family to go to university, the start of the long journey bringing me to the City Rail Link project and now, indirectly, back to the start again.
As the head of this big City Rail Link project, I’m able to do something about the luck and opportunity that proved elusive for some from Titahi Bay and other places like it.
I’m certainly no do-gooder out to change the world, but I do believe big companies have an equally big responsibility to make a difference, even a small one, where they can to help those who find their way to a job blocked by barriers or disadvantage.
CRL Ltd’s not alone – a lot of Kiwi companies are doing this in big and small ways. What CRL has is our size. At construction peak, we’ll employ 1600. Inside that number are opportunities aplenty.
Since coming home a year ago, I have reinforced a CRL Ltd objective to unblock that path that may be preventing people getting to the employment starting line.
Officially we call it the CRL Social Outcomes Approach. It has a very simple bottom line - maximising training and job opportunities for Māori, Pasifika and youth to help them side-step the challenges to join the work force.
This is not a ticking-the-box exercise.
We’ve just started a job-focussed pilot we call our Progressive Employment Programme. Six rangatahi (youth) are undertaking meaningful work and are paid the living wage. They are paired with CRL Ltd staff mentors and are provided pastoral care through our pilot delivery partners, Lifewise, Te Ara Rangatahi and the Rising Foundation.
The six youngsters, who are in their last year at college or have just left, are with us for 19 weeks.
It’s been no easy job for them stepping into our offices for the first time. There are a lot of suits here and a lot of people with degrees running around wearing worried frowns and a lot of desks with a lot of computers.
They spend 10 hours a week on the job at the start and then their time increases to 20 and then 30 hours. They’re exposed to a wide range of jobs - IT, carpentry, admin work, traffic management and others that form the grist of the infrastructure industry.
Importantly, there’s more to it than learning a work skill. It’s also about learning to be work fit – balancing life at work with life at home, getting used to being on time, and being tidy and polite.
There’s a long way to go yet before we know if our pilot is successful. If we have landed it, then we’ll certainly ramp it up. Already, we have one influential ally, the Link Alliance. The Alliance has our biggest tunnels-and-stations contract and with it, employment opportunity.
While there’s no guarantee that after 19 weeks there will be a job, our rangatahi can greatly improve the chances of getting one by how they approach their internships with us.
I believe everyone gets luck of some kind in their lives and our pilot may well be one. We will do all we can to help. If, at the end of our pilot, we can get even one rangatahi past those employment barriers, then all of us at CRL Ltd will take pride in being able to nudge the needle a little in their favour.